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We are pleased to announce the dates for the UK book launch tour of Rebel Sun, the new poetry collection from award-winning poet and performer Sophie McKeand taking in a plethora of festivals, venues, workshops, readings and more across the summer and autumn. The official launch will be held at Hay Festival on 31 May 2017 as part of our #IndiaWales project The Valley, The City, The Village.

‘Rebel Sun is a compelling, shapeshifting exploration of land and myth, the deep roots of our history, our relationship to nature and to ourselves, merging visions of the past with narratives of the close-up and personal. To hear Sophie McKeand’s work aloud is to be captivated, stunned; on the page the poems are no less profound. This is mythological, musical poetry that not only crosses borders but seems to dismantle them entirely, collapsing time and space, transfiguring and prefiguring the world we live in.’ – Martha Sprackland.

Struggling to write? In a panic about sending your next project out into the world? Now that she has 'been there, done that' Natalie Ann Holborow offers up frank wit and kind advice to other writers in her new blog post:

'I haven’t posted in over a year, but I figured launching my first book is something worth noting down now, while it’s happening, because your first time will only ever happen once (ahem).'

'I suppose people will expect me to gush here about the elation, the excitement, the surging rush of ecstasy at finally seeing five years’ of work and a dream I’d nurtured since I was writing two-page ‘novels’ in felt pen in front of The Powerpuff Girls finally come to life. I’d envisioned it and doodled it into the diaries I kept stashed in my pillowcases for years – me at a table in Waterstone’s, no longer the shy, sad mousey girl in secondary school but happy and signing books in front of a line of people who didn’t think writing was ridiculous or uncool. And you know what? Yes, it feels amazing.'

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Author of critically-acclaimed novel Pigeon, Alys Conran, will be appearing on Heno on Welsh-language channel S4C this evening, 8 May. Alys has recently been shortlisted for the prestigious International Dylan Thomas prize, the winner of which will be announced on 10 May. An event will be held at the British Library in London on 9 May to celebrate the shortlisted authors’ achievements. Alys will be reading excerpts from Pigeon at the event, so be sure to purchase a ticket! Alys will also be attending several more events in the near future including the Hay Literary Festival on 30 May. Visit...

As a Parthian intern, I recently had the opportunity to attend the Llandeilo Book Festival on 29 April. Being the first literary event I've attended during my time with Parthian, it was not only a great chance to learn more about Parthian’s publications but also provided me with the possibility of meeting other publishers, both from other publishing houses as well as self-publishing authors.If you were at the book fair, you may have seen me on the Parthian/Library of Wales stall in the Civic Hall with other Parthian colleagues, promoting our collections and selling a wide range of literary delights from...

With his new novel Hummingbird out in hardback this month, Tristan Hughes is our Author of the Month for May 2017.

Hughes has published various novels, three of which are set on Anglesey, Wales: The Tower (2004), Send My Cold Bones Home (2006) and Revenant (2008), each reflecting his interest in the landscape and history of the island. His fourth, Eye Lake (2012) turns attentions to northern Ontario. In his latest novel, Hummingbird (2017), Hughes braves through the Canadian wilderness: familiarising the landscape of his youth in a poetic coming-of-age story about death, life, and the changes they bring.